


Long Time the Manxome Foe He Sought

by cryingoverspilledvodka



Series: The Jabberwocky Series [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Character Study, Eating Disorders, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Explicit Description, Food Issues, M/M, Panic Attacks, Relationship Study, Sexual Content, compulsive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:39:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryingoverspilledvodka/pseuds/cryingoverspilledvodka
Summary: ‘You never eat anything.'‘That's not true,’ Yuuri replies, hearing how defensive he sounds and not being able to stop it. ‘I eat all the time. You know I do.’—Yuuri has everything he’s ever wanted. Victor loves him. And Yuuri loves Victor. More than almost anything.





	Long Time the Manxome Foe He Sought

**Author's Note:**

> Please be wary and knowledgeable of the tags and rating of this story.
> 
>  **Explicit and triggering content.**
> 
> Read at your own discretion. 
> 
> **Triggers:**  
>  Bulimic behaviour.  
> Calorie counting.  
> Food obsession.  
> Body dysmorphia.  
> Recovery terminology.  
> Deliberate miscommunication.  
> Deceptive behaviour.  
> —
> 
> An incomplete character study of Katsuki Yuuri if his issues with food had taken a different route. This story is about Yuuri, and who he might've been had he had these experiences.

When Yuuri was six, he was called fat for the first time.

It made him cry, the way the boy said it as he pushed Yuuri down into the snow. Yuuko was right next to him in a moment, and she had leapt to his defense, pig-tails swirling like propellers. Yuuri would never forget that image of Yu-chan in her puffy pink coat and mittens, waving her hands like some kind of mad bird as she lay into the boy. The snow had swirled around them, cold and wet. Yuuri thought that that was probably the moment his crush was born.

When the other boy had been scared off, Yuuko picked Yuuri up off the ground. She told him that the boy was just a meanie, jealous that Yuuri and Yuuko could skate when all he could do was fall. Yu-chan was older than Yuuri, he believed her. You always believed kids who were older.

Then Yu-chan smiled, tilting her head in a grin: 'Besides, there's nothing wrong with being a little pudgy!'

Yuuri remembers that what she had said made him feel awful though she didn't mean it to, but looking back, he knew that six year old Yuuri did not understand why. Not really.

Yuuri understands now. Doesn't mean he had a problem though.

 

* * *

  
Yuuri wasn't crazy.

Yuuri was going to be an athlete, a figure-skater. He just wasn't one yet. Right now he was a dancer. And Yuuri just did what Minako-sensei did, and no one ever said that ballet dancers were crazy. And he was a ballet dancer, first, so therefore, not crazy. Takeshi had no idea what he was talking about it, pointing at Yuuri over the table as Yuuri picked the scrambled egg out of his rice with his chopsticks. Yuuri made a neat pile of the egg on the lid of his lunchbox. Takeshi laughed.

'It's mixed in for a reason, freak!'

Yuuri frowned at Takeshi over their bento, Yu-chan already scolding in his defence. He pinched his chopsticks together and tugging his bottom lip between his teeth as he looked at his lunch, divided like a kingdom on the table.

Was it really so bad?

Yuuri didn't eat the egg. Or the rice. The guilt he felt at throwing them away after school threatened to overwhelm him at first. But he pushed it back. His mother cooked for guests all the time, it really was no extra work. Yuuri had told himself that every time he threw his food away, every time he offered the treats his mother would pack him to someone else.

'Ah, Yuuri-kun!' Yu-chan had scolded one lunch break, watching as Yuuri handed his biscuits over easily to Satoru who sat next to him. 'There'll be nothing left for you if you keep being so generous!'

Yuuri had just smiled then, touched by Yu-chan's concern. His cheeks turning pink like the sand in summer. Looking back, Yuuri wonders how he let something so silly become what it has.

He wonders if Yu-chan, fifteen years old and knob-kneed would forgive him.

 

* * *

  
'Wow, Yuuri! You look so thin!' Yu-chan exclaimed and for the first time in his life, Yuuri preened.

He stood up tall, pushed his shoulders back. Fourteen years old and strong. Yuuri smiled and it had felt like every nerve in his body was suddenly sparkling at the ends- illuminated. He had turned a little to his side, looking down at his waist as if he could see the empty space he'd created. Proud.

'Thank you, Yu-chan!' Yuuri had said, and he had never meant anything as truly as he did his gratitude then.

It was the best feeling in the world.

 

* * *

  
When Victor Nikiforov was seventeen, he weighed 56 kilograms according to the skating forums. Yuuri remembers vividly.  At fourteen, with that goal ahead of him, Yuuri would run for such long hours, count and weigh out how much steamed broccoli he should have for dinner after and put them in a neat row next to the chicken Yuuri had sliced into six pieces.

Even though Yuuri at the time had actually weighed less, at 47 kilos.

But with a height of 171 centimetres, 56 made Victor the perfect ideal. Muscle weight. The heaviness of hard work and stupendous skill. More than that- Victor was a god already and only been in the senior division a year.

Yuuri should start to build those muscles too. Start to add the weight to his body that was required now that'd he'd trimmed the excess in training. He would need to be heavier, to hit the right momentum. To carry with enough force. How much more muscle to get there? How much less fat?

Numbers, numbers, numbers.

How many rotations, how many kilometres, how many meals, how many times had Victor Nikiforov won gold already?

Yuuri still watched his food sharply, the scale even more so. He was a dancer, it was what dancers did. Victor had never done ballet- there were different rules for him. Rules Victor could never understand. Rules that had Yuuri buy a notebook that he kept his meal plan in like a bookmark. Yuuri would write down the calories of everything he ate- everything on the meal plan, for Yuuri to see himself. Soon, Yuuri started to see where he could trim it down even further. It was like learning another language.

And it was only what an athlete should do, after all.

That's what Yuuri told himself as Minako-sensei helped him choreograph his own skates for nationals. What he told himself when he saw the girls that left the studio from their class before him, cygnine and so, so thin.

They had to be doing it, too. Right? How else could they be so beautiful?

It wasn't until two years later, when Yuuri was first assigned to the senior division, that he tried to make himself throw up for the first time.

It was after his mother had made him katsudon as a celebration for his assignments. (Not in the meal plan). Yuuri had been so excited by the treat that he hadn't noticed how much he had actually been eating until his jeans started to dig in. Suddenly, Yuuri had been all too aware of the rolling, glutinous fat that spilled over. Yuuri had worked so hard, for so long. And now everything was going to be undone by one stupid indulgence? He thought of Minako-sensei, the other dancers in the studio.

The dumpling in Yuuri's mouth turned tasteless, like it just wasn't worth it.

It hadn't worked. Not really. Yuuri couldn't trigger a proper wretch, too afraid to stick his fingers far enough. As he coughed and his throat constricted, Yuuri pushed back from small the toilet of his en-suite feeling a strange cocktail of shame and relief.

It was so easy. But Yuuri couldn't do it.

On the other hand, this proved that Yuuri did not have a problem.

And that was something.

 

* * *

  
Yuuri was seventeen when he tried again.

This time, he pushed so far back he scraped his throat with his nails and everything came up. It was violent, and painful, and it went through Yuuri's entire body like he'd fallen from some great height and smacked every bone he had on the way down. Fractured some deep, hard part of himself in places that couldn’t fill back in.

He had sat across from the toilet, horrified by the pain and the smell. His stomach felt so empty. The physical, familiar ache of hunger present almost immediately after the purge. Like Yuuri's body was just that much of a glutton, never training itself to the diet required of it.

Yuuri would learn to want that ache. Just like his cardio, just like his strength-building. This was something he could train himself to do, too. With his body constantly aching for it, Yuuri would never forget to pay attention to the food he would eat. After all, if he messed up, this was the alternative. It was a bad alternative.

Just stick to the meal plan. Remember the calories he’d already documented.

Banana. 71 calories. Hot chocolate with water. 39 calories. 19.5 if you divided the serving. Yuuri just had to remember all of it, remember to stick with it and remember the bite in the back of his throat if he didn't.

That’s what athletes did all the time, right?

Slowly, Yuuri had begun to tidy the bathroom. He cleaned the toilet meticulously, twice, three times. Checked the tile floor even, just in case. Washed his hands, then decided on a shower to cover the smell because no matter how much bleach Yuuri used, he could still smell it.

 _It's only once,_ he had thought. _And just because I'm competing._ Yuuri would never do it again. He didn't have a problem, no nothing like that. He wasn't like those people who were really suffering. Yuuri just had to do what was necessary. As he stepped out of the shower, Yuuri took one last look at the toilet and then he couldn't stop the pride he felt.

He'd done it. After all those stupid attempts, he’d finally done it. And despite the smell, the ache and the burn in the back of his throat, Yuuri felt lighter.

It was fine. After all, he would never do it again.

 

* * *

 

  
After Yuuri turned eighteen, he was caught.

It wasn't a problem. He didn't have a problem. Over the year it had come and gone in waves, sometimes bursts. It was just a habit. Nothing for anyone to worry about. But the results for his routine physical for nationals came back and he still remembers the way Minako-sensei called out his name at Ice Palace. High with accent, vowels wide in a way only people from home could muster.

Yuuri had left a bemused Yu-chan behind him, waist circled by a stern looking Takeshi, as Minako-sensei took Yuuri off the rink. Took him into Yu-chan’s parents office and sat Yuuri down.

She asked about their meal plan. Yuuri said nothing. She asked about everything else. Yuuri still said nothing.

The conversation had been awful, one-sided and pushing Yuuri back into a corner he was too large to fit in. Yuuri remembers how he had gripped his own arms then, pressing fingers deep into his skin until it stung. Automatic response- itching to hurt. Sensei had noticed, had taken Yuuri’s hands into her own and looked at Yuuri with her dark eyes, shining like stones.

‘Yuuri, I need you to talk to me.’

But Yuuri didn't speak. He didn't speak to Minako, didn't admit despite the overwhelming evidence. He did cry however, and that seemed to answer Minako’s questions. For that day, it was enough but Minako warned Yuuri that he'd have another appointment in two weeks and if Yuuri’s sugars weren't up, then no nationals.

Yuuri had to get better.

And he tried. He left the notebook at home but then Yuuri had forgotten the numbers. Without them, Yuuri knew he’d over-indulged. He tried to keep everything down, but the food felt so great inside him. So huge and heavy, like it was pushing the edges of his skin out and Yuuri could see the ugliness of it, even if no one else could. Like dirt, like sludge. Like something toxic at swelled too big.

Yuuri did not get better. Not in time.

Appointments were made. His parents were informed. Mari had crawled into Yuuri’s bed the night of his first visit with the psychiatrist, her limbs long with adulthood. She nestled into Yuuri’s bed and gathered him up in her arms, like they used to do as children. Yuuri stared out across the room, traced the lines of his posters in the moondark.

Mari had said nothing, but she had sung to him that night. And the night after. For most of the nights that followed, Yuuri slept with the sound of Mari’s voice in his ears and the sting of a torn throat giving him snores.

They had taken his skating away. It had felt like dying.

 

* * *

  
At nineteen, Yuuri was deemed cured.

A brief complex, the counsellor had said with a kind smile as she guided Yuuri back to his parents. She said Yuuri knew better now, that his family and Minako-sensei knew better. They wouldn't let Yuuri get so wrapped up this time and he’d never think twice about the weight of a taiyaki again.

There wasn’t a diagnosis, exactly. Could be harmful, lead to further fixation. No one said the _b_ word, certainly not the _a_ one. In their narrow alphabet, everything seemed to start with _c_ for _cured._

When Yuuri got home, his mother offered lunch. Yuuri headed straight for a banana, plucking it from the wire rack in the kitchen. His mother smiled at the forwardness, eyes bright. Yuuri had smiled back, loving her so deeply.

 _71 calories,_ he thought but didn't say.

How cured Yuuri had felt, just by not saying it aloud.

 

* * *

  
Yuuri was twenty-three and bent over the toilet in his hotel. It hadn't worked. Nothing he did could undo all the damage of the food he'd stuffed into himself. He'd pushed so far back he came back with blood under his nails, had even pulled his toothbrush down from the sink. But it hadn't worked. None of it had worked.

Yuuri tried not to panic. He rolled over on the tile floor, breathing heavily. He watched the curve of his stomach- full, protruding and round in his guilt. It swelled in front of him like a beating heart and Yuuri felt like he couldn't breathe, throat scratched and hand wet.

The tears came quickly. They were already trickling but then the panic pushed them out in pooling, thick tracks. They were hot, dripping down his cheeks and his nose leaked after them. He was so pathetic. Yuuri ran his hands over his face, moisture everywhere and the twitching, stinging burn of nerves electric beneath his skin.

Yuuri thought of home. They were all counting on him. This, the Grand Prix, this is what everything he had ever done had been working towards. Victor Nikiforov was probably sound asleep somewhere on this very floor, talent so natural that when he woke it'd probably be as easy as breathing.

Yuuri wasn't like that. Yuuri had had to work. But now- now everything was ruined.

He'd just been so hungry.

 

* * *

  
When Yuuri got back to Japan, he ate like he was empty. Like there was a hole only food could fill. Having started in Detroit already, Yuuri saw little point in stopping now.

Minako’s tongue was sharp in Yuuri’s gut as she poked it with lamentations about Yuuri’s old-new roundness. Not the body of a figure skater, she’d wailed desperately as Yuuri shed his coat.

 _What’s the point,_ he had thought as he spooned more rice onto his plate later that evening. _Not a figure skater anymore._

But guilt seemed almost as hungry as Yuuri was and it swallowed him whole with every accusing look Minako threw across the table.

His mother was thrilled, bringing him anything and everything he asked for. She touched his cheek, smile warm as the creeping Spring sun. Told him how happy she was to see him eating. He never ate enough, she complained. Was his American coach starving him?

The numbers scrolled in Yuuri’s head in a constant tally as he ate. (140g, 203 calories). From underneath his bed that night, Yuuri pulled the old scales that used to be in his en-suite. The plastic was yellowed, grip whittled down flat so it shifted across the tile when Yuuri replaced it back to the bathroom.

He stepped on it every day. Watched the dial quiver like a metronome. Every day, Yuuri let himself get heavier.

Yuuri felt he deserved it.

 

* * *

  
Victor falls into Yuuri's life like rain hits the earth.

He seeps down beneath the surface of Yuuri's skin, with his breath on Yuuri's cheek and his pale fingers skimming the back of Yuuri's knuckles. Yuuri's heart is open and Victor steps through, without invitation and Yuuri wonders who just does that. It's terrifying and wonderful, it's everything Yuuri could ever have dreamed of.

Things that Yuuri had thought long buried suddenly bloom inside of him, taking root and spreading in long, creeping tendrils as Yuuri realises that maybe he hasn't lost as much as he thought. Ambition grows- small, fragile but it reveals itself to Yuuri again. He feels it every time Victor smiles. Sometimes even when he flirts- but Victor eats too much, speaks so loudly and forgets sometimes to take his shoes off at the door. He calls Yuuri names and then blows a kiss in the same breath and Yuuri knows that he probably can't trust a double-edged sword like that. He's only bound to cut himself.

(Victor also throws the word _pig_ like he expects Yuuri to catch it every time but every time Yuuri drops it like a note in a song. It sits in his stomach- immovable).

So it should be frightening, really, how easily Yuuri gets used to seeing Victor move through the rooms of his house, his life, despite all the ways Victor just doesn't fit in it. But Yuuri is not afraid.

For the first time in a while, Yuuri thinks he might just be happy.

The March sun is yellow and cool, streaming in through the panels of the inn. Yuuri stretches his arms over his head, body still warm from the shower he had after his run. He's wrapped himself in his Detroit hoodie, something that is fast growing too big for him. Yuuri fumbles with the extra fabric, turns it over in his hands. There's no denying it doesn't feel good to be back on track. To be honest, it's better than that.

'Yuuri!'

Yuuri smiles when Victor spots him, that deep ache Victor gives him splitting like a stone. Clean down the middle.

'Here you go!' Victor says, flourishing a sheet of paper. Yuuri watches as Victor folds himself gracefully onto the tatami.

Victor is all comfort in his robe, beautiful body draped in the fabric in long, slim bends. Everything about Victor is large but his arms, Yuuri decides. Big smile, big voice. Long, thin arms. Yuuri watches them now, watches as they move through the air and Yuuri wonders if Victor ever had to practice such grace. Wonders, selfishly, what it would be like to reach out and hold one.

'What is it?' Yuuri asks, taking the sheet as Victor bumps shoulders with him.

'Your new meal plan!' Victor says but Yuuri can see that. The room feels smaller as Yuuri takes it in. Or maybe Yuuri feels bigger. But suddenly everything feels too tight around him.

(It's stupid. So stupid. Yuuri is so stupid).

He's upset. He knows he is and he knows he shouldn't be. But it blossoms inside him, ties his tongue in a knot.  

'T-thank you.' Victor has even laminated it. So it can be hung on the fridge properly.

'Anything for my little katsudon!' Victor chimes and Yuuri flushes immediately, stomach fluttering at the nickname, though the word is alien in Victor's accent. He'd never had a nickname before. Victor leans over him, all warmth and cool cologne as he points at the date of one of the lined tiles on the page. 'I even included today. You've already had a good breakfast, but we can just follow the afternoon plan as normal! What do you think?'

Yuuri turns the sheet over, taking in the double-sided map of everything he would be allowed to put in his body. An allowance dictated by Victor. And of course that's fine, it makes sense. Victor is his coach. That's what coaches do. But Yuuri is just so angry at the sight, unable to stop it.

Yuuri doesn't want a meal plan. Not even from Victor. Not from anyone but himself. Only Yuuri should get to decide what he eats and when he eats it, the thought instant spark to his matchstick resolve. Yuuri has already made a meal plan. It was working, wasn't it? He'd lost almost 3 kilograms over the last six weeks. The need to tell Victor all of this, to repeat every measure and litre Yuuri had already planned rises up inside of him. Yuuri feels like something is building in the back of his throat. This is... too far.

But Yuuri says nothing. After all, what can he say? To say something is to talk about the running Yuuri knows he isn't ready for yet. The food Yuuri wraps in his napkin when Victor isn't looking at breakfast to meet the deficit.

Maybe Victor is right to do this. Yuuri's relationship with food is tumultuous, to say the least. Maybe Victor knows more than he lets on. Maybe he knows Yuuri can't be trusted.

The thought makes Yuuri's blood run cold. He wants Victor trust him. Wants to ask Victor to.

Instead, Yuuri just takes in the sheet silently, not trusting himself to say anything. It's 12 weeks of meals- breakfast, lunch and dinner, with two optional snacks. All the way to the start of the season. Victor even includes water rations.

Victor has every little detail planned out for him. And he hadn't asked Yuuri a single thing about it.

Yuuri looks over the meal plan and tries to fight the sudden urge inside him to vomit. It’s automatic, reflexive almost. It claws its way up his throat, the entire weight of his being feeling like it's sitting in his stomach and pulling. Tugging at Yuuri from the inside. He feels so ill now, stomach swollen and suddenly the thought of two more meals turns his nerves inside out.

Yuuri tries to ignore it. Counts the bullet points of Victor's plan, feels the warmth of Victor's shoulder.

But the smell of Victor's cologne is so strong. Victor drowns Yuuri in the small space, the edges of the tatami suddenly hard underneath him and-

It's not enough.

'Excuse me,' Yuuri says quietly, rising to his feet.

He feels Victor's eyes on him like a burn.

 

* * *

  
Yuuri isn't entirely sure what's he's doing.

He's in his bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet. His breakfast was over an hour ago, what is he hoping to achieve? It's too late to pull the calories out of him now.

But the urge is still there. It itches beneath his skin, burns in his gut. He's so nervous. Nervous of everything. Victor’s presence changes the very shape of Yuuri’s life, his laugh and his eyes and his beautiful body blowing in and taking up space Yuuri hadn't even paid attention to until now. The empty spaces of his home and world that Yuuri's adoration hadn't quite reached.

Now Victor bleeds into every corner, creeps past the bends of Yuuri's secrets. He pushes on Yuuri’s doors, hangs his own medals on Yuuri’s walls. Yuuri feels so big and so small all at once. The things Victor, _Victor Nikiforov,_ will expect of him. They are huge, towering ambition and how will Yuuri ever meet them?

 _No_ , Yuuri thinks defiantly, slamming the lid of the toilet down. It echoes around the room in confession as Yuuri stands. Victor came here for a reason. He chose Yuuri for a reason.

Yuuri could be good. Better than that, he would be great. He’ll follow Victor’s meal plan, his coaching. Yuuri will follow Victor just as he always had.

It is everything Yuuri knows, after all.

 

* * *

  
Victor controls everything.

It happens so slowly that Yuuri isn't sure how he managed to lose so much of it all to Victor's demand, but soon, Victor is doing everything for him.

He checks the screws on Yuuri's skates. Says that's what coaches do, it was his job. Yuuri lets him- because what else is he supposed to do when Victor asks him? Yuuri wants nothing more than to do as Victor asks him. But it's hard. Yuuri always checks his own skates. Counts the screws, counts the turns it takes for them to be tight. How else is Yuuri supposed to know for sure?

But now Victor is looking at him so beautifully. Smiling, hair so soft and nose pink from the cold rink. Yuuri’s heart is an hourglass, constricted in the middle from where Victor’s attention pours through him. Yuuri already knows he’s lost the fight here. So he hands over his Riedells, takes pride in Victor's small coo over what good condition they're in and let's Victor have this one.

But then Yuuri let's him have the next one. And the next. Until Yuuri is left with very little.

Victor gives Yuuri his skates one morning. They look beautiful- buffed, leather creamed so the scratches are almost gone and laces washed. And the ROH is too shallow. Yuuri notices immediately. He's going to fall in these before he even gets a chance to make a mistake for real.

'I got them sharpened for you yesterday,' Victor says, hands open in a flourish over the skates as Yuuri turns them over in his hands. _I know,_ Yuuri wants to say, but doesn't.

 _They're so shallow,_ Yuuri thinks. _I'm not good enough for these. I'm too heavy._ They'll bend, he worries.

'Thank you, coach,' he says instead and Victor tsks immediately.

'Ah, Yuuri! Don't be so formal!' Victor says with a mock frown, bottom lip pouted.

Yuuri finds himself staring at it- wondering. He realises he's been staring too long and blushes when he meets Victor's eye, which is keen and so very blue on him. Victor leans forward, pins Yuuri to the rink's plexiglass with two hands on either side of him. Yuuri bends his back, but meets resistance in the rink wall and swallows, stomach tying into a tight, hot knot at the sight of Victor following the movement with his eyes.

'Next time you call me coach, I won't be held responsible for the methods I'll go to for you to call out my name,' Victor purrs and Yuuri knows his blush has gotten worse, but that doesn't stop the thrill that skitters down his spine. Yuuri would very much like to know any and all methods Victor has possibly concocted.

Yuuri catches himself quickly on that thought. The indulgence is too great and Yuuri withdraws quickly. He looks away and holds his skates to his chest. Feels the curve of them. So shallow. So sharp. Yuuri will simply stand in them and his weight is bound to sink them.

'We should start.'

Victor doesn't move, doesn't listen to Yuuri. Never does, really.

Instead, Victor takes Yuuri's chin in his hand, tilting Yuuri up. Moves Yuuri's body like he ought to because he's the coach and Yuuri's the student and that's just how it is. Yuuri is uncomfortable- he doesn't want to be moved, to be cornered. But Victor has him and Yuuri is staring at his lips again.

'Yuuri.'

The way Victor says his name is like when you take off for a quad jump. Rising, breathless, dangerous.

'Vi-Victor,' Yuuri stammers in reply and he hates his voice and he hates his chubby hands as they grip his skates and he stares at Victor's shoulders, wondering how widely Victor has to set them to fit his beautiful arms around Yuuri's massive body.  And, and, and...

Yuuri is running out of reasons to not want to kiss Victor.

 

* * *

  
When Yuuri is with Victor, he begins to feel less large.

There's something about the way Victor touches the soft hairs on the back of Yuuri's neck when he's kissing him. There are words Yuuri doesn't know, yet understands, traced into the soft skin of his waist when Victor's hands wander underneath his shirt. With every kiss Victor gives him, every touch and every soft breath in Yuuri's ear, Yuuri feels like he's giving something away each time and feeling lighter for it.

When Victor calls out to him across the rink in Ice Palace, when Victor spins tight circles around Yuuri so to see if his stance is strong from all angles- when those things happen, Yuuri feels like he's being whittled down. Shaving parts away until he is a fine point in which Victor sews his affection. The tip of a needle.

Being in love is suddenly the most addicting thing in Yuuri's life.

He had always thought that it would be like fireworks. Explosive, colourful and spiraling upwards. But it isn't. If anything, Yuuri is reminded of the incense his mother burns in the living room. Love for Yuuri is a slow, warm burn that eats away at him. Swallows up the bad, leaving only crumbling ash and the sweetness to fill the air. Yuuri breathes Victor in and it isn't exactly drowning, but it isn't far off it either.

When Victor finally convinces Yuuri to stay in his bed, when he finally manages to slip the shirt off Yuuri's body and the trousers from his hips, it feels like Yuuri is skating. It's not a performance, but it's something in the shadow of it as Yuuri tries not to curl too far into himself, tries not to show how deeply afraid he is that Victor will see what Yuuri sees in the mirror. But Victor only leans down, hands roaming over Yuuri's body like it's something to be cherished and inside of Yuuri, deep down, something breaks.

With Victor moving inside of him, his long body a blurred, white flame as he pushes in and out, Yuuri whines as the need for more erupts inside of him. He always wants more. His hands scrape down Victor's perfect back, his back bows from where Victor leans forward, sliding gorgeously deeper. He makes love to Yuuri in slow, steady movements that send Yuuri's body into shivers. Like an earthquake, like the turn of the sky at the edge of the earth.

It doesn't take long before it's not enough for either of them. Soon, Yuuri's back is biting the springs of the mattress. There are tears in the corners of Victor's eyes as he babbles through the movement of them. As he tells Yuuri how gorgeous he is, how badly Victor had wanted to do this. How long Victor had waited and how happy he is now Yuuri has trusted him.

It's that, more than anything, that tips Yuuri over the edge.

When Victor goes still above him and the wet, hot heat fills him from where they are connected,  Yuuri thinks _we're beautiful_ and he means it.

Victor touches Yuuri's face after, draws circles on Yuuri's cheek. Yuuri almost sleeps, sated and glowing in a way he'd never thought he could.

'I love you,' Victor says after a few long moments. Yuuri opens his eyes, looks at Victor's pink cheeks and frazzled hair.

Yuuri kisses him, lets Victor roll him over onto his back again. As Victor pulls away, he notices that Yuuri is the one who's crying now. Yuuri presses against his own stomach with a sweat-damp hand. Victor can never know.

'Yu-'

'I love you, too,' Yuuri confesses, before he gives everything else away.

 

* * *

  
In the months coming up to the Grand Prix, Yuuri only slips up once.

The urge rears its head almost every day since Victor first placed the carefully constructed meal plan down in front of him. But Yuuri holds firm, tying his hands up in Victor’s hair and chasing away his own criticisms with the sound of Victor’s laugh. Instead, when the urge hits, Yuuri runs. As soon as he can, for as long and hard as he can. Until his knees ache, his chest swells and anything he might've eaten threatens to come up anyway from the exertion.

It only ever did the once or twice. And it wasn't on purpose, not really, so Yuuri figures it doesn't count. It’s not a relapse.

One day, he ran for so long that Victor actually had Mari drive him around the lazy lanes of Hasetsu, beeping the horn madly when they spotted Yuuri leaning over the railing of the bridge. Victor got up earlier after that, claiming he’d always been an early riser. It got more difficult to get away with then. But just like with everything else, Yuuri gave himself over. After all, for some utterly bizarre reason, Victor Nikiforov wanted him.

Who was he to say no to a love like that? Yuuri didn't want to say no to a love like that.

The mistake comes in Russia. Yuuri is alone, the space Victor leaves inside him gaping like the mouth of a black hole. Some dark, empty thing that swallows Yuuri up. He paces his hotel room, he thinks of his skate the following morning. He sees the bed still unmade from where Victor had been sleeping. Picks silver hair from his own jumper. The walls are small around him- tight, narrowed space and his heart races. Yuuri realises he hasn't eaten all day, not since breakfast with Victor.  

One quick walk to the twenty-four hour convenience store sends Yuuri down the beaten track.

The next day, Yuuri skates the program he and Victor had designed together and it feels like coming home. The ache in his stomach is dulled by the image of Victor smiling and he pushes through the black spots that dance in the corners of his eyes. The exhaustion is like a physical weight, the clammy shaking his midnight purge had given him has him quivering in his skates. But Yuuri wants to be perfect. He will be perfect.

Next time, Yuuri thinks as he spirals through his combination, heart pouring love like water. It pools around him, pulls him into all sorts of shapes and he aches when he hits the ice. _I won’t do it again and next time, it will perfect._

 

* * *

  
When Victor asked Yuuri to be his student, Yuuri said yes.

When Victor asked Yuuri to join him in his bed from the week after China, Yuuri said yes.

When Victor asked Yuuri, eyes bright with Spanish starlight if he’d really take Victor’s proposal, all teasing aside, Yuuri said yes.

When Victor asks Yuuri to come to Saint Petersburg, to leave Japan again and carve a new space for himself out of the Cyrillic corners and white walls of Victor’s life, what else is Yuuri supposed to say?

He says yes, smiles into the kiss Victor gives him and balls his hands into fists so tight, his nails dig into his palms.

 

* * *

  
‘I was thinking January,’ Victor says brightly as he pours cold borscht into a glass. Yuuri hums back, not really listening as he's too engrossed in the notebook in front of him.

_Counter, COE, Choctaw, Counter (?), Turn_

‘It'll hopefully be snowing in Hasetsu that late,’ Victor continues as Yuuri runs a firm black line of pen through his second counter and turn on the page. ‘We could wait until March, probably more romantic. But it would clash with Worlds. And I think we’ve already waited long enough. What do you think?’

Yuuri says nothing as he scribbles _3A_ over the mess he made on the page, wonders if he could convince Victor to let him push the Arabian entry of a spin to the second half of the program. The season hasn't started yet, isn't even close but Yuuri is already sure that he’ll have to more than abuse his stamina if he has any hope of reaching Victor this season.

‘Yuuri?’

Victor may not have been competing the last ten months, but he hadn't been idle either. While the exhibition skate training hadn’t been half as dedicated as competitive, it had shown enough for Yuuri to appreciate that Victor is unlikely to suffer too much from his sabbatical off ice. Between Victor’s experience and little Yuri’s youth, Yuuri knows the season will be difficult.

‘Yuuri!’

Yuuri snaps up, startled by Victor’s voice. Victor is smiling at him from across the kitchen island, top lip tinted ever so lightly by the borscht.

‘There you are,’ Victor teases and Yuuri blushes, apologising quietly as he closes the notebook. ‘What do you think about January?’

‘January?’ Yuuri asks, confused. ‘What about January?’

Victor gives Yuuri a withering look.

‘For the wedding,’ Victor replies gently, shaking his head a little. ‘I think January would be nice. After the Grand Prix, but before Worlds. We could debut as a married couple then!’

Oh.

Yuuri doesn't say anything. But the first thing he thinks, unbidden, is that Victor is going to lose the Grand Prix. Or at least, he expects to. Victor expects Yuuri to win gold and fulfill his promise in one perfect execution before January. The thought suddenly makes Yuuri feel like there’s something stuck in his throat. 

‘But- what if I don’t win?’ he asks, because Yuuri needs to know. He really needs to know. 

Victor blinks at him, before he smiles. That Victor smile. The one that’s just for Yuuri and the knot Yuuri has tied around his heart loosens. 

‘Then I win,’ Victor replies simply, tilting his head with a smirk that cuts Yuuri’s anxiety open so it bleeds. ‘And I marry you anyway.’

’Would you want to, even if I don’t win gold?’ Yuuri says, confused because that wasn’t part of the deal and Yuuri wants to deliver. He wants to achieve what Victor has asked of him and this feels like... concession.  

Victor’s smile falters. 

‘Yuuri,’ Victor says softly, eyes imploring. ‘Of course I would.’

Yuuri isn’t sure if that’s comfort or consolation. He swings between both; a pendulum weight. 

‘Promise?’ Yuuri says, unsure and the twelve year old boy inside of him reaches out. Desperate for Victor’s assurance. 

‘I already did,’ Victor teases back, raising a hand to show off the gold ring on his finger. 

After that, the conversation flows into ideas. Plans. But Yuuri is thinking about how putting the wedding at the middle of the season means any weight loss he'd been half-considering for the wedding itself can now run concurrent to his competing. Both will dovetail and by the Grand Prix, Yuuri will be luminous and someone capable of taking Victor Nikiforov down the aisle.  

It's a daft, wild thought but it's all Yuuri thinks for one, crystalline moment. Everything else crumples in after, like a bad landing. Yuuri flushes, embarrassed at his vanity.

Victor takes it for bashfulness. He reaches out, white fingers grazing Yuuri’s cheek. The skin tingles- Victor is so warm.

‘So, what do you think, _Solnyshko?’_

If Yuuri is the sun, then Victor is the vast, sparkling universe that surrounds him. Yuuri smiles, turns his face so he can graze his lips across Victor’s fingertips.

‘That sounds great.’

It does sound great. Because Yuuri will win gold, like he promised and show Victor that Yuuri is someone worth believing in. Someone worth marrying. 

Then Victor smiles again, pink ribbon lips bowed in the centre and Yuuri thinks _Yes, I want to be yours._

He looks down at his own ring, remembering Victor’s condition and knows-

_I want you to be mine._

 

* * *

  
They've set a date. Medal or no medal, Victor says. (There will be a medal. Yuuri has promised, after all). And by January, Yuuri and Victor are going to be married.

Married.

This perfect thought is all that's in Yuuri’s head as he reaches into the cereal box. He takes out just three or four shells of it, carefully arranging the plastic tear of the box so it looks recently used. He crushes the shells of cereal in his hands, drops them into the empty bowl. One dash of water to make them stick, make it look used and he puts the bowl in the sink. He pads over to the cutlery drawer, pulls out a spoon. He's humming to an American pop song he heard in the rink the other day, popping the spoon into his mouth and dragging it back out past his lips.

Yuuri drops the spoon in the sink with the bowl. Leaves them there, nervously looking around the kitchen sink for any way his carefully constructed presentation may fall apart. Bowl, spoon. Glass with a drop of orange juice left in it. There's nothing. It's perfect.

Yuuri pours himself some water, sits at the island and waits for Victor to finish his shower.

When Victor eventually walks out into the living space, Makkachin clipping away behind him on the hardwood floors, he's everything Yuuri’s every wanted. Dressed in his kit, hair damp and _Victor._ Victor smiles like a flame and Yuuri’s heart grows so large it weighs him to the stool.

Victor steps into the kitchen, hands already out to take Yuuri’s cheeks into his palms.

 _‘Solnyshko,’_ Victor murmurs against Yuuri’s lips, mint tingling and beautiful. ‘You're up early.’

‘I’m capable of beating you to some things on occasion,’ Yuuri jokes, letting Victor kiss him deeply. Let's himself bury his hands in the soft fleece of Victor’s jumper.

‘Then I’ll make you breakfast!’ Victor chimes happily, moving to step away but Yuuri stops him with a gentle hand.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says, smiling but his gut twists as the guilt tugs at him. ‘I've already eaten.’

Victor pouts, but he's easily won back around when Yuuri helps him sit up on the island’s countertop. Yuuri will eat. He tells himself this as Victor runs his hands through Yuuri’s hair, wraps his long legs around Yuuri’s waist. Just later. He’ll eat later.

 

* * *

   
Yuuri goes days without breakfast, tallying how to make up the protein in his lunch before he swaps dinner out for a shake because by then it'll be too late to work off anything excess without Victor noticing. The thought zig-zags in his head, so fast even Yuuri loses track of the logic. But soon he's following the habit like it was what he was always doing.

In the bedroom, Yuuri turns in the mirror until his waist folds like paper. Creased, in a slanted line of where his body bends. He’s back to training, he’s back to managing it all but Yuuri still sees the way his thighs balloon. The round edge of his stomach. He’s not as big as he let himself get in Japan. But he isn't competition small either. They're still in the early weeks- choreographing, designing and dry conditioning.

 _It’s fine,_ Yuuri thinks when he hears Victor call him from the living room. January will be after the Grand Prix season anyway and Yuuri is fit, training pulling his muscles out and twisting them into warm pressure. He can lose the weight. He will lose the weight.

Victor purses his lips when Yuuri tells him not to include him in dinner for the third night in a row.

‘Is everything alright?’ Victor asks from the couch and Yuuri wonders if he can see it. If the blue eyes Yuuri so adores can see right through Yuuri’s skin to the bones that suffocate under what Yuuri can't manage yet. ‘You haven’t been eating properly lately.’

Yuuri smiles, walking over and kissing Victor’s head as he leans over the back of the couch. Right on the top where he likes to press the tip of his finger. Where the hair spirals like a crop circle.

‘I’m fine. Just don't feel up to much after pushing so hard,’ Yuuri replies and Victor pulls a face. Yuuri knows this face.

‘Maybe we should take an extra rest day. It's not good if you're losing your appetite.’

‘It's nothing to worry about, I'll be fine after the weekend,’ Yuuri backtracks quickly and Victor frowns. Victor stands up, rounds the couch and takes Yuuri’s face in his hands. At first, Yuuri thinks _this is it. He knows._

And Victor is frowning, pale eyebrows tied together above his nose in a small crinkle of skin. But then Victor closes his eyes and laughs quietly. He leans forward, holding Yuuri’s face as he presses a kiss to Yuuri’s forehead.

‘My Yuuri, always so stubborn.’

 _Your Yuuri,_ Yuuri thinks, stomach twisting with guilt and amazement that Victor would ever want such a thing.

 

* * *

 

The Russian team call them a power couple _._ Yakov calls him Victor’s leash. Yuri snaps _pig_ like the word is in short supply all of a sudden and Yuuri carves a hole into the ice the shape of his ass as he falls under the scrutiny.

They have one interview before training starts in earnest now that the choreography is settled and Victor talks for both of them in the bright Starbucks by the old palace. The journalist is Russian, she speaks Russian and Yuuri smiles whenever they make eye contact with each other but mostly he just sits with his hands on his lap so Victor won't do anything pushy like hold one.

‘So,’ Marta says, Yuuri’s brain too slow at first to catch up with her English. She turns to Yuuri, teeth white, skin white and hair blonde and she looks like Victor in a way that Yuuri wishes no one ever did. ‘Victor says you've finally set a date for your wedding! Of course there's been rumours of an engagement since we all spotted those rings!’

Marta nods to where Yuuri’s hands are hidden under the table and Yuuri’s throat closes up. Victor has the good grace to look bashful at least, but it's too late. Yuuri is caught off-guard and really, Victor did the same with the proposal in the first place so why is Yuuri surprised?

‘Ah. Yes.’

Yuuri wants to give the perfect response. He wants to simper and preen, the way Yu-chan had done back when Takeshi had proposed to her over the steps of Ice Palace all those years ago. But Yuuri misses his cue, words sticking and Marta’s smile falters. It's enough and Yuuri feels so sick it dizzies him.

He can see the judgement in her eye. Her assessment. Yuuri doesn't need her to tell him. He already knows he's bad at this, bad for Victor. Yuuri knows that he can do anything, _anything,_ if he really wants to but he can’t play like this and god, does that he mean doesn’t want to-

Victor picks up the silence, picks up on Yuuri’s unease and answers for them again. He uses English but Yuuri still feels like they're speaking a different language.  _Wedding_ sounds different in Victor’s mouth.

Just like _lucky charm_ became _engagement ring,_ if Yuuri were to think about it too coldly.

Yuuri wonders, madly, if Victor loves him for something Yuuri sees for something else. Like skating, like the rings. Is afraid, that maybe, it had been that way since the beginning.

‘I’m sorry,’ Victor says later as Yuuri gets into their bed after his shower. Yuuri shuffles, not sure how to answer. But quickly, he manages to find himself pressed into the comforting cage of Victor’s arms.

‘Don't be,’ Yuuri says into Victor’s chest, smelling the perfume of their fabric softener. ‘I’m sorry for being so rude.’

‘You’re perfect,’ Victor says and Yuuri’s throat narrows again like muscle memory.

Like _wedding,_ like _ring,_ like _sorry- perfect_ evidently means something else to Victor, too.

 

* * *

 

At Nationals, Yuuri is alone. And it’s not as terrible as Yuuri thought it would be.

He wins gold and Skypes Victor back in Russia after. The screen pops and suddenly Victor is there, waving and chiming _okaeri_. Which isn _’_ t how the word works. As Yuuri is not home- he is alone in this hotel room, he was alone for the podium party and the thought put him off so greatly he just didn’t go, politely turning down the eager invitations of his other competitors.

But then Yuuri is just himself and suddenly, it isn’t so hard. Japan is good and familiar to him, fits around him the way Saint Petersburg feels too small sometimes. Because in Japan no one asks if he’s eaten, no one watches how much Yuuri drinks and no asks about his engagement ring like it’s the only thing about him. Without Victor there, Yuuri suddenly feels lighter.

The guilt eats his appetite for him.

Yuuri’s stomach rumbles, but Victor can’t hear it over the phone speaker. They talk until Yuuri falls asleep, holding Victor in his hand and missing how Victor tells him about the Russian weather. The next morning, when Yuuri realises he fell asleep mid-conversation, the first thing he feels is relief. Relief at not having to tell Victor how much calmer he feels surrounded by the kanji, relief at not having to speak English for just a little while longer. And relief not to bring up Victor’s silver at his own nationals as Yuuri doesn’t want to admit that he is disappointed Victor didn’t perform better.

Yuuri hates himself after and what happens next, in the hotel bathroom, is inevitable.

In between, they’re not quite apart but not what they are normally either. Their apartment is quiet as the season starts, early mornings and late evenings where the only time they have for each other is when they collapse into bed together at night. Even Victor is missing his scheduled meals now, though he gives out fierce when he realises. Yuuri is less concerned when lunch goes past and Victor hasn’t reminded either of them to stop, both of them skating until the ice is too much of a mess to even carry them anymore.

‘Tell me it won’t always be like this,’ Victor grumbles in the shower, tipping his head back into the spray so Yuuri can massage out the shampoo in his hair. It’s precarious, as Yuuri has to get up on his tiptoes to reach and the floor is slippery.

‘It won’t always be like this,’ Yuuri says dutifully, though they both know that it will always be like this.

Victor looks down at him through his wet eyelashes, smiling as Yuuri scrubs out the last of his shampoo. Victor steps forward, gently pushing Yuuri down onto his feet. Victor runs his hands over Yuuri’s ribs, fingers splitting between where the bones stick out. Yuuri blushes, despite the hot water.

Victor presses their foreheads together, shower spray running into their eyes. ‘You’re not usually so agreeable.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m the most agreeable person you know.’

‘You’re in Russia and win by default, so it means nothing,’ Victor teases back, kissing Yuuri’s nose, then down to his top lip. Yuuri leans up, kissing him proper. Victor sighs happily and Yuuri’s heart sings. ‘Tell me you’re not going anywhere.’

‘Where would I go?’ Yuuri asks, confused. Victor doesn’t answer, just wraps his arms around Yuuri’s waist and pulls him forward into the water.

And at Skate Canada, they are together.

It’s a mess and a nightmare, and so stressful Yuuri considers just drowning himself in the hotel pool. But at the same time, Yuuri has never felt better because he and Victor are engaged and yes, it’s an absolute train wreck of a weekend between managing each other, the skates and the press- but Yuuri is himself, and refuses to be beaten down by this. He takes first after the short-program, Victor in second though not for the first time, Yuuri feels the cold bite of fear that Victor may not make it into the Grand Prix. 

So Victor holds Yuuri’s hand through the whole thing and it’s a promise- because Yuuri has said nothing but Victor still knows.  

Victor buys them a packet of fresh strawberries from the deli. Yuuri looks at them, nervous but he’s hungry. He’s really fucking hungry and Victor is smiling, and maybe everything will be alright.

As they sneak off after the free skate, sharing strawberries and sweet kisses in the dark car park of the arena, Yuuri doesn’t think about the Grand Prix.

Yuuri thinks _this is what being married will be like._

Yuuri can eat and does eat. Leaning against the concrete walls, Victor tapping his fingers together in a display of how tacky they are from the fruit, Yuuri knows that he can stop it anytime. And he will stop it. He will. After the qualifiers, when they’re both safely finalists, Yuuri will stop.

After that, he doesn’t miss Japan as much and when he thinks _let’s go home,_ he thinks of Makkachin and Saint Petersburg. He thinks of Victor's kitchen, open like a wound on their living room in the open plan. 

 

* * *

 

Victor makes it into the Grand Prix, without Yuuri’s worry holding him down and by his own elegance, too. Not like Yuuri last year, by the skin of his sensitive teeth. 

Today, Victor is with Yakov alone and tomorrow, Yuuri will be with Victor. But right now, Yuuri is with Makkachin and the bathrooom mirror. 

Yuuri drinks the water almost in one go. He pours another glass and drinks. Yuuri drinks and he drinks until he can feel the water at the back of his throat. Until he feels so full with it that if he were to bend, it would all pour from him like a jug spout.

The water helps. Makes everything come up that small bit easier once he's on his knees on the days Yuuri feels he needs to. It still hurts. It always hurts, but now he sees specks of blood, bundled under his nails when he pulls his fingers back. For the second time in his life, Yuuri panics over this exact thing. And for the second time in his life, he tells no one.

Instead, Yuuri drinks water from the tap like a dog. Just enough to soothe the sting. He’ll mix some salt water later, just to be sure, but for now, he just drinks.

The water running fills his ears and Yuuri absently touches a hand to his stomach. It still feels soft to touch, curled around in a bend that Victor’s never did.  
  
Yuuri isn’t entirely sure how he’s started again. He hadn’t meant to.  
  
Of course, it’s too late for that now. The wedding looms over him, casting a shadow too great that even the season threatens to be lost to it. Everyone is expecting so much from him. Katsuki Yuuri- Victor Nikiforov’s student, his competitor, _fiancé._ Everyone needs Yuuri to be more beautiful, to be thinner, to be better. Victor deserves all those things and Yuuri will find a way to balance them, will find a way to deliver.

Yuuri thinks of the silver from last season’s Grand Prix. Looks at his gold engagement ring on the sink, where he'd left it after taking it off _before._

He’ll stop before the Grand Prix. Just a little bit more and then it'll be done. Yuuri quit once, he can quit again. He’s always been able to do whatever he set his mind to. Yuuri just needs to keep it balanced until the season finishes, so he’ll still be competition ready for Worlds and it'll be one less thing to worry about.

Yuuri isn’t going to let Victor down again.

 

* * *

 

'You look pale.'

'Look who's talking,' Yuuri snaps back because he's tired and his head hurts, just behind the eyes, officially putting him not in the mood for Yuri Plisetsky's snark today.

'Shut it, pig!' Yuri retorts and Yuuri rolls his eyes at his lack of grace. 'I just mean you look sick, but whatever. You want to keel over on the ice then do.'

Yuuri won't do that. He had a granola bar for breakfast. His stomach is still screaming for more, but it's enough to stop Yuuri from teetering in his skates as he steps out on the ice. Eating is so much worse than not. The hunger from eating just enough is always stronger than the hunger of eating nothing at all.

But the ice is all the comfort he needs, Yuuri thinks as he glides in lazy figure of eights. Round and round, in the cold. The rink here is different. Yuuri had never been cold on Ice Palace, but now Yuuri is shivering in his kit. He'll have to push himself a little more, warm up a bit faster. He gathers speed, pushes into a single loop. Hears Victor call out from the other end of the rink where he stands.

'Careful, Yuuri! We haven't even started yet!' Victor's tone is light but Yuuri hears criticism. His form was probably lacking, thighs not strong enough to carry him. Weighed down by their girth. He doesn't look at Victor, or say anything. Instead he skates even further away.

When it becomes obvious that Victor isn't joining him, Yuuri gives in and looks over to where his fiancé is posited at the end of the rink in his beautiful golden skates.

Yakov is talking with Victor over the plexiglass. Victor has his eyes closed, hand on his chin- shoulders tense, Yuuri can see. Yakov is obviously keeping his voice down, frowning and stern, their conversation clearly private but evidently urgent enough that Yakov couldn't wait to get Victor off the ice. Yuuri starts when Yakov meets his gaze from across the ice and his stomach drops with understanding.

It's about him. It has to be.

Has Victor noticed something? No, he can't have. Yuuri is so careful. The most careful. There's no way Yakov could know then, surely. Surely?

But the panic is sudden and it's real, shaking Yuuri apart and his lazy gliding stumbles a little, like a confession. Everyone staring. Yuuri is so large he can't hide anywhere. Flushing, Yuuri skates his shivering body over to the awning were his guards and water sit, side to side with Victor's. The small bag of orange slices that Victor had brought for them is there as well.

It's fine. Yuuri can show them it's all fine.

Yuuri pretends to not notice how Yakov is now watching him. Tries to be nonchalant when he takes up the bag of fruit, but being sure to turn slightly so it's obvious to everyone what he's doing. Yuuri sneaks small glances through his eyelashes, taking out a slice and popping it in his mouth with flourish.

The taste is so strong and it's been so long since he's eaten anything that when his mouth salivates it hurts. Yuuri just contains his flinch, but his whole face tightens with it. He chews slowly, waiting for his jaw to stop burning from the inside out.

He looks over with purpose now and this time even Victor is watching him. Yuuri smiles because that's what one does when their fiancé is looking at them. He waves a little before taking out another slice and eating it with as much fervour as he can manage. Two is enough, more than enough. Maybe even too much.

But it's Yuuri's body. And he knows it better than anyone. Better than Victor.

He pushes away from the awning, back into his designated circle. He ignores his stomach clenching around the food, the acid burn of it. He speeds up to fight the cold and when Victor finally joins him, Yuuri twists with his hips first because Victor always likes that best.

Victor smiles at him, reaching out to push hair behind Yuuri’s ear. It’s getting long.

‘Okay?’ Victor asks and Yuuri suddenly feels so guilty it threatens to break him. Victor is so beautiful, fits so well into the rink around them. Everyone is nearly as tall, as beautiful. Even Yuri will pass him out soon.  And Yuuri is so awkward, so unattractive. So selfish. Look at his life- his perfect, beautiful life and his perfect, beautiful fiancé.

Yuuri wants to tell Victor he's sorry. Wants to tell Victor everything.

But Yuuri says none of this, instead smiling back and taking Victor’s outstretched hand in his in own. Then, Yuuri takes an unusual step of boldness.

Yuuri leans up in his skates and kisses Victor just shy of his mouth, lingers just a moment before pulling away. Victor looks surprised, but happy and suddenly all Yuuri can feel is the warmth in his heart at the sight. Victor wraps his arms around Yuuri's waist, pulling him flush to Victor's body. The momentum carries Victor backwards, the pair of them skating together chest-to-chest. Yuuri laughs, Victor brushing his lips against Yuuri's temple.  
  
Yuuri loves Victor so very, very much. More than almost anything.

'Oh for fuck's sake,' Yuri whines from somewhere behind them. 'Stop that shit or piss off, alright?!'

 

* * *

  
‘Ah, Mister Nikiforov!’ Piotr exclaims, the tailor pulling back to review the small print of the measuring tape. ‘If you're fiancé gets any smaller there won't be anything left to marry.’

Yuuri beams, turning over his shoulder to catch Victor’s eye. Victor isn't smiling, instead he is staring lower- at Yuuri’s waist, his hips. Yuuri shivers, unable to stop himself as the familiarity of such a look washes over him. It's been so long since Victor has looked at Yuuri like that. Or it feels like it has.

(Yuuri knows that's his fault. The space in their bed grew when Yuuri wasn’t looking, too busy putting the bricks up to hide himself to notice he'd left Victor on the other side).

The suit will need to be taken in. Another 2 inches. Yuuri bounces a little as Piotr tells him, nervous energy. Is that enough? Will he look alright? Yuuri wants to ask, but he can't. Not with Victor right there. He catches Victor watching him again in the mirror, still staring at his hips. Yuuri tugs on the suit self-consciously.

'Do I look okay?' he asks quietly, waiting for Piotr to move away. Victor gets up from where's leaning against the wall, walks across the small studio and directly into Yuuri's space. Suddenly, he's kissing Yuuri deeply, tongue slipping into Yuuri's mouth and Yuuri gasps in surprise. Victor runs his hands along Yuuri's waist, wraps them behind Yuuri's back like a bow as he tugs Yuuri down from the small podium, catching Yuuri effortlessly.

When he pulls back, Yuuri ignores the simmering worry that begins to bubble up inside of him. 'What was that for?'

'You're so beautiful,' Victor says slowly, eyes moving all over Yuuri's face, like he's looking for something. Yuuri glances over Victor's shoulder, wary of Piotr coming back into their small seclusion by the mirror. Victor takes Yuuri's gaze back to him with a finger to the chin. 'Do you know that?'

'Victor!' Yuuri admonishes, shifting in Victor's grip as he feels his face grow hot. Honestly. 'You can't say those things-'

'You are,' Victor interrupts, this time a bit more forcefully. His grip tightens and Yuuri's panic galvanises. Something is wrong. He can tell. But Victor refuses to let him go. For a long while, that's all it is. Just the two of them- Victor's arms around Yuuri's waist, Yuuri's hands around Victor's neck. The smell of fabric and leather all around them.

Finally, Yuuri decides to move. He pushes a hand through Victor's hair. Smiles when Victor frowns.

'I love you, Vitya,' Yuuri whispers, letting Victor brush their lips together again. Victor moves away slightly, buries his face in Yuuri's neck.

'Yuuri,' he breathes against Yuuri's skin. Yuuri shivers, pulls Victor closer. ' _Vernis' ko mne.'_

(Come back to me).

Yuuri doesn't know what that means. Instead, he just holds Victor tighter and wonders what he'll do.

Even now, Yuuri knows he's pushing this thing between them. He knows he is.

But he can't stop. Not yet.

_Just a little more, Victor. I promise._

 

* * *

  
Despite all his planning, all his care- all the efforts Yuuri has made to protect Victor- it's not even Victor who catches him in the act.

It's reckless. More than that, it's just plain stupid. But Victor that morning had been so clingy, more so than usual and Yuuri was suspicious but unable to let himself deny Victor as he made them both breakfast, sitting close to Yuuri while they ate and even helping Yuuri with his coat as they left for the rink. There had been no time to stop at the washroom.

He throws up in the changing room toilet. Oatmeal and berries, barely digested, lumping and bleeding red juice, erupt up his throat and soon his stomach is empty. His nose runs, burning all the way down. He had thought he was alone, retching a little loud as the shock of the wet food coming back up takes him even after all this time. He's spitting into the toilet bowl, saliva stringing thick and eyes watering. Then-

'Oi! Katsudon, is that you?'

Yuuri starts. A squeak of panic and Yuuri flusters on the floor. There's still vomit on his fingers. He scrambles for tissue paper as Yuri Plisetsky starts knocking on the cubicle door.

'You okay? Open the door!'

'One second!' Yuuri shouts and then flinches, as he hadn't meant to be so loud. To sound so upset. But Yuri is silent on the other side of the door as Yuuri wipes his hand desperately, then his face. He takes a few deep breaths, closing the toilet lid and flushing. Then he opens the door.

However he looks, it mustn't be good as Yuri's derisive snarl instantly melts away when he meets Yuuri's eye. His mouth falls a little open and he looks worried. Yuuri closes his eyes to him, unable to face it and walks blindly past him towards the sink. He’s shaking, can feel it. An earthquake down through his bones, crumbling down.

'You're sick.'

'I'm alright,' Yuuri rasps and his throat stings so much it hurts to speak at all. Panic thrums beneath his skin, screaming at him to run. Just flee. He opens his eyes and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks grey- washed out. Eyes wet and blurring without his glasses.

'Clearly not if you're throwing up,' Yuri replies and Yuuri doesn't know what to say so he just starts to wash his hands. One pump of soap. Then two. Can Yuri smell the vomit on him?

'Really, it's fine. I'll be good now it's out of my system.'

That's not strictly speaking untrue.

'Is Victor making you skate when you're sick? You should tell coach.'

'Victor is my coach.'

'Victor's an idiot. You should tell him to fuck off,' Yuri says with bite and Yuuri is so surprised at the notion that he just stares at the green eyes that watch him through the mirror. The truth was if Victor knew even a fraction of what was happening, he'd probably lock Yuuri in their apartment, never mind leave him at the ice

'Victor doesn't know,' Yuuri says truthfully, slowly and he avoids Yuri's eye. He stares at where his hands are beginning to get red from the hot water. 'I didn't want him to worry.'

Yuri says nothing for what feels like a long time.

'You shouldn't skate.'

'I'm going to skate, Yurio.'

'But you're sick!'

'It's fine.'

'It's obviously not, pig.'

'Yuri, stop.’

Yuuri never calls Yuri by his name, but the word _pig_ goes through him bluntly. Awkward, heavy and painful in a way it hasn't been for a long time because now Yuuri is soft bruise where he used to be tough callus. Yuuri stares down at his hips in the mirror. Still so round, no matter what he does. His shoulders tense and Yuuri feels so large, wants so desperately to be smaller. Small and thin, like Yuri is behind him.

Yuuri's trying so hard and he knows it's wrong, that he's losing control now but he will not let Yuri treat him like this when Yuuri has nothing to protect himself with. He's spiralling, he knows that, but Yuri will not be the reason for Yuuri to lose everything.

Skating is everything. If Victor finds out, then he'll take it away from Yuuri like he's taken everything else.

It’s just until the wedding. Yuuri can handle it that long. He just needs time to get it right. Like skating, like Saint Petersburg.

'You won't tell Victor,' Yuuri says sternly, fear galvanising something inside him. Something with teeth and claws. Yuuri turns to face Yuri, taking advantage of his height. Stares the teenager down. 'Understand?'

'Or what?' Yuri snarls back and Yuuri shouldn't be surprised that it'll take more to bear the kid down. So Yuuri tries a different approach. He shrugs, feigns blasé. He's been getting better at it. Language barrier breeding the ability to detach.

'Or nothing. It's just our business and I feel that what happens between Victor and I is just that- between us.'

It’s not marriage. Not yet. But as Yuuri walks past Yuri with his shoulders shaking, he knows that what Victor and he do have is _precious._ It’s soft and beautiful, and Yuuri is holding it for ransom and doesn’t know how to stop. But whatever happens, Yuuri will be the one to control it. For Victor’s sake.  
  
Yuri is just a teenager- still so young. He couldn’t understand a love like that.

 

* * *

 

The cold will not let Yuuri go.

He wakes in their bed, shivering and stomach aching. He curls in on himself, tries not to wake Victor next to him. Tries to make himself smaller. Yuuri thinks he's managed it, but then the bed shifts and their room fills with light as Victor turns on the bedside lamp.

‘Yuuri,’ Victor says and Yuuri rolls over to hide better, pressing himself against Victor’s warmth. Victor wraps his arms around him- ever the dutiful fiancé. Yuuri kisses Victor’s bare chest, like he might taste Victor's heartbeat. Runs his hands over Victor’s skin, hoarding what he can't believe he found in the first place. ‘Are you cold? What's wrong?’

‘I'm fine,’ Yuuri chatters between rattling teeth. They feel loose in his mouth, though he knows that isn't true. It's just the knowledge that he's thinning them down every time he vomits. ‘Just- don't let go, yeah?’

Victor doesn't let him go. He whispers to Yuuri in English about their plan for the morning, then Russian as Yuuri begins to drift off. Yuuri sinks into Victor’s voice like the edge of the coast into the sea.

In Victor’s arms, the cold fades and Yuuri forgets. Just for the night

He remembers when he wakes up.

Yuuri eats three granola bars for breakfast, following each with two mug fills of water. Then it's back to the restroom before Victor wakes up. Shower on, fan on. Loud, loud space. Echoing off the tiles so Victor doesn't hear him.

He's so sore and dizzy after. Throat throbbing and heart leaden. Yuuri brushes his teeth, twice over. Swallows so much water to stave off the ache. Then he's shower damp and crawling back into bed, back under Victor’s arms.

 _When we’re married, I’ll stop,_ Yuuri thinks as Victor shuffles beneath him. Feels Victor kiss the top of his head, his ear, cheek. Down and down until he’s nibbling along the line of Yuuri’s collarbone. It's been weeks. Weeks since Yuuri has felt good enough to not cover himself in pyjamas. Weeks since he didn't stop Victor’s hand from reaching down between his legs.

With Victor licking into his mouth, Victor’s hand holding their cocks together as they rut against one another, Yuuri wonders why he ever stopped when it feels so good. When Victor’s skin is so warm and his mouth tastes so sweet. The feel of his stomach against Yuuri’s; lean, hard and the steps of Yuuri’s ambition.

Being with Victor just _feels so good._

 

* * *

  
Yuri sits down and puts a plate with one large, shiny croissant on it on the table between them. Yuuri stares at it for a moment, before he looks at back at the teenager that is now folded lopsidedly in the seat opposite him. Yuri has a foot up on the seat next to him, shoe digging into the plush cushion and Yuuri frowns. Such bad manners.

‘Eat,’ Yuri says and it takes a moment before the word registers.

‘What?’ Yuuri replies, dumbly and he shakes his head when he hears how torn his throat sounds. Yuri’s green eyes are like the sharp tips of grass as they narrow at him.

‘The pastry. Eat it.’

Yuuri swallows slowly, not panicking. Definitely not panicking.  
  
‘It’s your cake,’ Yuuri says, smiling and waving a hand idly towards Yuri. ‘You don't need to share with me. I'll get my own in a minute.’

‘Okay, go on then.’

Yuuri’s smile dies on his lips but he recovers quickly, shrugging his shoulders like it matters so little. He wraps his hands around his large cup of tea. ‘Once I'm finished. Please, don't wait for me.’

‘You never eat anything.’

Yuuri’s stomach turns itself over like it's trying to catch Yuri’s words and swallow them. It hurts and suddenly, the air is so thick that Yuuri feels like his lungs are constricting with the pressure. Drowning in the open air and Yuuri feels so big, like everyone can see.

‘That's not true,’ Yuuri replies, hearing how defensive he sounds and not being able to stop it. ‘I eat all the time. You know I do.’  
  
Yuri says nothing. He sits and he waits. Yuuri looks away, then back. Stares at where Yuri’s beautiful collarbones peek from beneath his t-shirt.  
His narrow, narrow wrists. Yuuri wants wrists Victor can wrap his fingers around like a bracelet.  
  
‘You know me,’ Yuuri tries, even throwing a small laugh in. Yuri always likes Yuuri best when they can laugh at him together. Yuuri closes his eyes and focuses on the heat of his cup, fingers gripping too tight. ‘I just get so nervous. I don't mean to, but I guess I can be a bit forgetful.  
  
Yuri says nothing to that either and Yuuri doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.  
  
‘Does Victor know?’ Yuri asks at last, voice unusually soft. Yuuri closes his eyes and shakes his head. He doesn’t want Yuri to be soft. To suddenly be open, rounded corners. Like Yuuri is some great balloon that Yuri’s sharp edges could pucker. Yuuri squirms, feeling constrained in his skin and large in their small booth. Always large.  
  
‘That I get nervous?’ Yuuri suggests, continuing before Yuri can interrupt. ‘Of course.’ He laughs- it’s shrill and reminds him of America, for some reason. Foreign in this small, Saint Petersburg cafe. ‘Hard for me to hide.’

‘I guess,’ Yuri mutters, taking a sip of his coffee.  
  
They talk about skating. About Victor. Yuuri separates the sugar packets in their bowl. White on the left, brown on the right. Yuri watches him and Yuuri eats the croissant, chasing it down with his tea. He throws it up ten minutes later in the cafe bathroom with the hand-dryer running.  
  
Together, he and Yuri walk to the rink. He ignores the way Yuri watches him. Doesn’t speak because his voice croaks. Doesn’t walk too fast because his head sways.  
  
‘I’m sorry I called you a pig _,’_ Yuri says, bizarrely and Yuuri looks at him, dazed.  
  
‘Um. Thank you? But it’s not that big of a deal,’ he replies, shrugging his shoulders. ‘You wouldn’t be the first teenager to call me names.’

Yuri makes a face at that and Yuuri’s heart bends like a tide. Typical. Only Yuri Plisetsky would think himself so important.

 

* * *

  
Yuuri stares at himself in the bathroom mirror at the rink. He goes on his tiptoes, twists his body.

His hips are still so round, thighs touching in the middle no matter what he does. No matter how long he runs, how many extensions. The fat clings to him stubbornly and he tries not to tear up as he looks at the misshapen, glutinous form of his body. Squeezed like sausage meat into the film of his training gear.

He tugs his t-shirt up. Looks at his stomach. Pinches and rolls the fat of it. Yuuri wishes he could tear it off himself like paper.

‘Yuuri?’

Yuuri jumps at Victor’s voice. Startled, he drops the shirt and meets Victor’s eye in the mirror as Victor walks in. Victor says nothing, but he walks up behind Yuuri. Wrapping himself around Yuuri’s waist. Yuuri squirms, hyper aware of how large he must be in Victor’s arms.

‘Are you okay to train today?’ Victor whispers into Yuuri’s ear, eyes focused on Yuuri’s from the mirror. Yuuri frowns but Victor just kisses him behind the ear. ‘We don't have to. You deserve a rest.’

‘We had a rest day on Tuesday,’ Yuuri points out and he knows he sound stubborn. Victor holds him tighter. Yuuri pats his hand reassuringly. ‘It's fine, Victor. I want to skate. Please.’

Like with almost everything, Victor gives Yuuri what he wants.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri collapses on the ice.  
  
He hadn’t meant to, but half-way through his step sequence he hits the ice with a loud _slap_ that echoes. It rings around him like a noose around his neck. The nausea had been so great. The emptiness in his stomach swollen, lurching forward and he’s down.  
  
Victor is there in moments. His hands are on Yuuri’s face, beneath his head. Yuuri can’t see- vision blocked with spots, body too heavy to lift. Always too heavy. He tries to wave Victor away, but Victor isn’t listening. He sounds hysterical to Yuuri, though Yuuri can’t understand him. Russian. Always Russian, always leaving Yuuri out.  
  
‘Yuuri,’ Victor says, brushing the hair from Yuuri’s face. The tears from his cheeks. When had he started crying? Yuuri shivers, then shakes and soon he trembling so terribly that Victor has to hold him steady. Had the rink always been so cold? ‘Yuuri, my love. Speak to me, please. _Onegai.'_ _  
_

Victor’s Japanese is awful, is the last thought Yuuri remembers.  
_  
_ Yuuri falls asleep there, with the wet of the ice beneath and Victor’s masquerade at familiar above. Hovering in the space between.

 

* * *

 

The doctor doesn't speak English.

He takes Yuuri’s blood, gestures to the scales and Victor relays his words to Yuuri like Yuuri is a child. Yuuri is not a child. He knows what to do.

They had come immediately from the rink, after Yuuri came to. He claimed flu. Yakov said doctor. Victor took Yakov’s side, like always. So now they're in the office of the doctor liaised with the rink. Victor’s doctor, Yuri’s doctor. And now Yuuri, too.

Yuuri’s head still spins as he stands on the scales. He can't see the numbers, glasses off and in Victor’s pocket somewhere. Victor hovers behind the doctor, itching fingers. Yuuri can feel the ghost of them from where Victor had been holding him. Supporting Yuuri’s weight like it was too great for Yuuri to carry on his own.

Yuuri closes his eyes. He's fissuring across his great surface. Cracks so deep that Victor might see all the way through to the core of him.  Yuuri could stop it now, stop it like it was stopped when he was a child. All he has to do is turn around and tell Victor the truth, let Victor tell the doctor. Let Victor take this away, too.

Yuuri says nothing as he's guided gently back into the chair of the clinic they're in. Yellow walls, yellow floor. Yellow like his scales back home. Yuuri stares down at it like it might give him all the answers. Victor and the doctor talk over him, quick and alien. Like he isn't even there. Yuuri is so tired he just closes his eyes, wonders if Victor will let him sleep when he gets home.

‘Nurse,’ the doctor says suddenly and it takes Yuuri a moment to realise he's being spoken to. The doctor points at Yuuri while Victor’s jaw goes tight. ‘You talk to nurse.’

Yuuri frowns, but he nods. He's more confused when the doctor takes Victor out of the room entirely, much to Victor’s great displeasure. He's alone for barely a minute before a nurse comes in. She has very white teeth and brown hair that curls at her ears. She sits down next to Yuuri with a Cyrillic clipboard and clean nails.

She asks about how Yuuri has been feeling. Emotionally.

(Fine. Training is hard work).

Is he eating?

(Yes. Strict meal plan).

Does Victor control what he eats?

(Yuuri has never heard a question like this. He pauses).

Yuuri is bruised. From the falls, he points out and the nurse nods but writes something he can't read on the corner of her sheet. She thinks he may be malnourished. She smiles gently and Yuuri’s heart snaps in two when he realises where they're looking for blame.

(No, Yuuri says. He says it again and again).

The nurse nods again, scribbles on her clipboard. Yuuri listens to the pen scrawl and wonders just how far he’s willing to go to protect this from Victor. Keep it hidden beneath his ribs and under his skin. But the secret is bloating now, getting too big for Yuuri to contain.

‘My fiancé loves me,’ Yuuri says, tears blooming. They fall quickly and the nurse is quick to soothe him as he stutters his way through an explanation. ‘Please. I don't know why I'm doing this but- but I can't stop. I can't stop.’

She holds his knee. Let's him cry. Whispers in English that _it's alright_ and that they'll help him.

‘You can't tell Victor,’ Yuuri pleads. He takes her hand and he knows his fingers are cold. Knows it from her jump. ‘Please don't tell Victor.’

The nurse tells him he's a patient. His confidentiality is safe. Yuuri wants to feel bad- wants to feel guilty for locking Victor out of his suffering but he doesn't. He just feels relief. They sit for a long while after, the nurse firmly telling him she can't let him leave as she's not convinced he's not a danger to himself. Yuuri assures her, over and over, that he will be fine. He has Victor, Victor will take care of him. Yuuri has it under control.  
  
The nurse stays with him until he's calmed back down, before she tells him she'll make a follow-up appointment for him. 

When Victor is finally allowed back into the room, he's on his knees instantly. He can see Yuuri has been crying. He kisses Yuuri- his lips, his cheeks, his nose. Tastes Yuuri’s tears and holds Yuuri’s hands.

‘What is it?’ he whispers to Yuuri as the doctor writes a prescription. ‘Do they know what's wrong?’

Yuuri smiles, taking Victor’s hand. Runs a finger over the gold band there. ‘It's what I said. Just the flu.’

Victor obviously doesn't believe him. ‘Is this like China?’

Yuuri blinks, thrown. Victor holds Yuuri’s hand so tight it hurts him.

‘If you need help, if your mind needs help, then please tell me,’ Victor says quietly, like he's afraid that if he speaks too loud Yuuri may break. Yuuri’s eyes water again, the love he feels inside of him swelling in some great wave that drowns him suddenly. Yuuri feels grateful- so grateful he almost gives way.

But instead-

‘No. I promise, it's just the flu.’

Victor frowns and Yuuri smiles, as he can't think of anything else to say.

The doctor hands Yuuri his prescription for painkillers on the way out. His eyes are hard as concrete, Yuuri slapping into the surface of his look of suspicion.  Crumpling on impact. There's a note for the follow up appointment in a week's time that Yuuri does not intend on attending. Yuuri does not sign him as his primary care.

This man thinks he can weigh Yuuri against his experience. Yuuri always tips a scale in his favour.

Yuuri got better before. He'll do it again.

Yuuri will stop. He will. He has to, he knows.

(Just- not yet).

 

* * *

 

 _how to tell if someone is suffering from an eating disorder  
_ **search**

 

 _are anxiety and eating disorders related  
_ **search**

 

 _anxiety and eating disorders  
_ **search**

 

 _eating disorder signs and symptoms_  
**search  
**

 

* * *

  
'There's something wrong with your fiancé.'  
  
Victor doesn’t look away from Yuuri when Yuri speaks. A week later, Yuuri is in the centre of the rink. He’s spinning in slow, sweeping circles. Arms low, heavy like they hadn’t been a few weeks ago. Victor looks at Yuuri’s waist. Where his under-armour drapes over empty space. The grip Victor holds on himself with folded arms tightens as Yuri skates up next to him.

‘I know,’ is all Victor says.

‘What are we going to do?’ Yuri asks quietly, leaning his small body against the plexiglass next to Victor. Together, they both watch as Yuuri already begins to lose momentum. He hasn't even been on the ice an hour yet.

‘It'll be alright,’ Victor replies, patting Yuri on the shoulder and forcing himself to smile. Yuri stares back at him- verdant concern. ‘Yuuri just lets his nerves get to him.’

Victor knows that's not all. Knows it like those around he and Yuuri are beginning to know it. He tries not to indulge in the shame that floods through him, the anger he feels at himself for apparently being the last to know. Yuri is sixteen and even Yuri looks at Victor like Victor had pulled the weight off Yuuri by force. It hurts him in small, fragile places Victor didn't even know he had.

Victor wishes he could hide Yuuri away from it all. Keep whatever was wrong private and small between them. So small he could crush it in his own hand and save Yuuri by himself. But it's too late now. Yakov knows. Yuri knows.

Soon, everyone else will too and what can Victor do to protect Yuuri then? There are things fighting Yuuri from the inside out and Victor can't even save him from that. He feels unworthy of Yuuri’s love, his trust. Victor has never wanted to prove anything as much as he wants to prove to Yuuri that he is _here,_ that Yuuri is _not alone._

But Victor knows that Yuuri will just pull away, like he always does. Further from Victor every time. Because what Yuuri wants he wants them to achieve together but not the way Victor wants them to achieve it together. Victor feels like a guest in his own engagement, the coach to help Yuuri to the golden finish line but not the husband Yuuri should want to share it with. Victor is the coach but they’re not a team.

It isn’t fair, to think that way Victor knows. But a light has gone out in Yuuri and Victor doesn’t know how to share a flame he’s not allowed to start. Doesn’t know how to warm Yuuri’s cold fingers anymore. Doesn’t know how to be enough.

Yuuri is so _selfish,_ Victor thinks before hating himself for it.

After practice, (which they have to cut short when Victor noticed that Yuuri was swaying on his skates, eyes squeezed shut in a headache he'd had for hours), Victor makes a decision.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri knows something is wrong.

He knows it as Victor cuts practice. Knows it as Victor drives them home in near silence, ignoring Yuuri’s attempts at conversation. Knows it with a heavy sense of dread when they come home and Victor only pats Makkachin’s head briefly, before pointing Yuuri towards the shower. Yuuri goes, because Victor asks.

When Yuuri comes back into the living room, the apartment is swollen with the smell of food. Yuuri panics. It’s too early for their planned lunch.

‘It’s a bit early for me,’ Yuuri says to Victor’s back. Victor ignores him, keeps singing to a Russian pop song from their house playlist that chimes across the Bluetooth speaker on the countertop.

‘You don’t have to,’ Yuuri tries again. Victor flips the egg in the pan, tossing a quick smile over his shoulder like Yuuri had said nothing.

‘Victor, really, it’s fine-’

‘I’m cooking, Yuuri,’ Victor replies sternly and to hear the same voice Victor uses on the ice in the small, silver space of their kitchen renders Yuuri truly mute then.

Yuuri sits at the island, wearing a jumper that somewhere between Hasetsu and Saint Petersburg got too big for him. He sits in the bundled cotton, watches as Victor pours a stir fry into a bowl. Watches, fingers twitching nervously as Victor places a bowl on the island counter and slides it towards Yuuri, before sitting down at the other end of the island. One whole stool between them. 

‘I'd like you to eat,’ Victor says slowly, and though Yuuri isn't looking at him, he can feel Victor watching him. Yuuri fiddles with the fork. Victor normally puts out chopsticks. Why a fork? Why now?

‘I really don't feel well,’ Yuuri replies quietly, moving his hand to gently push the bowl away from him. The porcelain scrapes and Yuuri watches the food as it watches him right back. Like it knows. ‘Still shaking that flu. I'll have it later, okay?’

‘No,’ Victor says, suddenly sounding quite stern and Yuuri jumps. He looks over at Victor and Yuuri realises with a steep drop in his stomach that Victor is _angry._ Yuuri pulls his hands to his chest, tangles them up in the fabric of his jumper. He’s afraid.

Victor is staring at Yuuri, mouth in a firm line. Downturned at the corner like the bow of a Choctaw and Yuuri feels like he’ll throw up. He knew this would happen. He knew it. But he isn't prepared. All his careful planning forgotten.

Because Victor is angry.

With one fluid movement, Victor pushes his stool back and walks down the line of the island. His fingers skim the top of it and Yuuri can see the lines they make on the polished surface. When Victor gets to Yuuri, he bends down low and reaches out- hand in Yuuri’s hair, down his cheek. It's everything Yuuri wants and yet Yuuri flinches, shuts his eyes and pulls his jumper so tight it pulls at the back of his neck.

Victor holds him still, holds Yuuri like he holds him in everything.

‘Yuuri, please tell me what's wrong.’

Yuuri says nothing but his stomach gurgles- like a sink, like a drainhole and Yuuri feels cornered, like he's circling down and going to drown. It's so typical, for his body to betray him like this. To give Victor the truth like Yuuri gives everything. Why can't Yuuri just have this one thing? This one thing that's familiar and his and doesn't Victor think he looks beautiful so what does it _matter._

‘Nothing is wrong,’ Yuuri lies and it doesn't even hold true in his own mouth. Victor’s hand has swept its way back into his hair, his fingers tighten there and Yuuri follows his direction like he follows Victor in everything.

‘Yuuri,’ Victor breathes and Yuuri starts when he hears Victor’s voice, because it creaks like a staircase under Yuuri’s weight and when Yuuri opens his eyes to look, Victor is watery eyed and his nose is pink, though for Victor it mustn't be cold. Victor is crying and Yuuri’s heart breaks cleanly in two, divided up almost evenly. ‘Why won't you let me in? Why can't you tell me?’

And suddenly, Yuuri is the one who’s angry.

It's so sudden. It's a fall from form, a mistake. As familiar as when Yuuri steps out of his quad wrong. But it's warm and righteous and Yuuri delves into it headfirst because it's the only way out Victor has given him. Like Yuuri is throwing himself down on the cold, hard surface of the ice with the intention to break through it and drown.

Who was Victor to ask _more of him?_ Does Yuuri not already give him everything? After all, this was all for Victor in the first place.

‘I need to go,’ Yuuri snaps before he says something he regrets, bumbling movement as he stumbles out his chair, out of his Victor’s grip. He stands tall and sways, moving so fast and black spots bloom. Victor is there instantly, holding Yuuri by the shoulders but once Yuuri steadies himself he bats Victor away.

‘Yuuri-’

‘Don't touch me.’

Victor doesn't.

It's silent for a moment, silent as Yuuri fumes and wonders how soon he can just head to bed. But the bed has never seemed smaller and Yuuri has never been larger. He swells in the space of Victor’s attention and Yuuri hates the swirling anger inside of himself, hates the panic that eats at him and eats at him. He wants to throw up. He wants to scoff down the food Victor gave him and throw it all back up, loudly and then turn to Victor and scream _well now you know! Now you have everything, are you pleased?_

‘Yuuri.’ Victor starts, then stops. Yuuri tightens his arms around himself. Watches Victor from the corner of his eye, like some cornered animal watches the thing that stalks them. ‘Yuuri, you're scaring me. You're hurting and I know you’re doing it to yourself.’

‘This is so stupid,’ Yuuri says and it’s true. 

‘How long?’ Victor asks and Yuuri doesn't want to say. ‘How long have you been doing this? At least these last three months.’

‘It doesn't matter, Victor.'

‘Since you moved here? Is that why?’ Victor pushes, presses. Words stacked up against Yuuri’s chipping resolve. ‘Yuuri, if it was too much you should've told me. I can't help you when I don't know!’  
  
'I don't need help,' Yuuri says, desperate.

He gives in and walks up to Victor, closing the distance between them and putting his hands on Victor's chest. Victor doesn't reach back and Yuuri tries not to worry about it, running his hands up and down Victor's front in an attempt to get Victor to relax. Yuuri tries to think of a way to explain, a way to make it seem as small as it feels to Yuuri. But he can't stop seeing it through Victor's eyes now and Yuuri is afraid he may never get back.

'It's really okay, Victor. That other day, with the doctor- I promise, it won't happen again.'  
  
'It shouldn't have happened at all,' Victor says and he still sounds angry. Yuuri's tears are back, hot and tickling the corners of his eyes and Yuuri looks away, mortified. His hands twitch against Victor's shirts. 'You need to tell me what's going in your head, Yuuri. Before you do some real damage.'  
  
Yuuri laughs, but it's empty. He just doesn't know what else to do. 'You're taking this way too seriously, Victor.'  
  
Whatever Victor says next, Yuuri doesn't understand as it's in Russian and Yuuri sees red. Yuuri steps away, hugging his arms back to his chest. Victor makes like he's not going to let Yuuri go, but he does and Yuuri thinks  _what's wrong with me_  before he can stop himself.  
  
'I don't know what you're saying, Victor. I never know what you're saying.'  
  
'And I don't know what you're doing, Yuuri!' Victor says, frustrated. Yuuri flushes and holds onto himself tighter. 'This isn't- this isn't like anything I've seen before. I don't know what to do. I need you to help me, help me understand.'  
  
'You don't need to,' Yuuri replies, not knowing how to get out this conversation. 'This isn't your problem. Just have some faith in me, please?'  
  
'It's you, Yuuri,' Victor says earnestly, hands out like he wants Yuuri to step back into them. Yuuri doesn't. 'If you're suffering, then it's not my problem. It's my responsibility.'  
  
That hits Yuuri like a hammer. He chokes, tripping over his words to deny; 'I don't want to be your responsibility! Is that what you think I am?'  
  
Suddenly, Yuuri feels like everything he's been thinking in his darkest moments are true- that Victor think he's dead weight, that Victor sees him as something to be improved upon, something to tailor and that he thinks Yuuri is  _weak-_ it’s a punch to the stomach and Yuuri hates Victor in that moment. 

It hurts more than anything has yet and Yuuri doesn't know what to do with it,  doesn't know where to put such a thing because his heart is too small to hold it. It cracks like glass.

'Yuuri, please, listen to me. Really listen,' Victor says, moving again and Yuuri retreats, not wanting Victor anywhere near him. Something passes over Victor's face and Yuuri looks away, not sure if he's angry, embarrassed or guilty. Victor takes a breath. 'What you're doing isn't good for you. And I just don't want you to feel you're in this alone. You're not alone, you must know that. Let me help you stop this.'

‘You're the one who told me to lose the weight!’ Yuuri throws back, interrupting rudely and his voice scrapes through his throat like it has sharp edges that tear it up. He coughs and it's an accusation. 

‘I never would!’ Victor replies manically. His hands wave and Yuuri sees Yu-chan, seven and pink in Victor's movement like a puppet. Yuuri teeters on his feet. ‘I- I never meant... This isn't right. What you're doing isn't healthy, Yuuri.’

‘I’m not _doing_ anything,’ Yuuri lies and Victor is angry again, Yuuri can tell but it's not enough to get through what Yuuri has built around himself.

‘I hear you when you throw up,’ Victor says and Yuuri’s anger goes out like a candle. He's suddenly cold- heart stopped, like a clock and Yuuri doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to say. Victor runs a hand through his hair, pushes the tears on his face. ‘At first, I thought- I don't know what I thought. That you were anxious, that you were sick. I didn't want to push because you've always asked that I trust you. But Yuuri, I can't anymore. Not when I know you're lying.’

‘You don't know anything,’ Yuuri says bitterly and his voice is thick with tears. Throat hot and tight, eyes prickling as Yuuri fears he may start crying. Victor sighs heavily. Like Yuuri is being churlish. Like this is any other argument. ‘I look fine.’

‘You've been losing weight.’

‘It's just training. And the meal plan. I know what I'm doing, Victor.’

‘No, you don't,’ Victor says hardly and Yuuri winces. Victor has never spoken to him like this and already Yuuri can feel the tears slipping. Embarrassed, Yuuri hides his face in one of his hands. ‘You’re hurting yourself. I know you are. What I don't know is why.’

‘What else was I supposed to do?’ Yuuri answers, panicked and the words are high like glass breaking. Yuuri points at Victor with one hand and holds his own throat with the other. ‘I'm not like you. Or Yurio. Training isn't enough, Victor. And you were the one who called me piggy in the first place!’

It's not an accusation. It's not blame. But Victor’s face goes white and Yuuri is suddenly wrong-footed. Yuuri sobs thick and wet between words as they stumble to a stop, rendered mute by the emotion that spills down Victor’s face.

‘I didn't mean- it wasn't like that, Yuuri,’ Victor says quietly and as Yuuri expected, from the very beginning, he finds himself on the other side. Because now Victor is upset and Yuuri needs to fix it.

‘I know, Victor. Please. It’s fine,’ Yuuri says and he wants to mean it. But underneath the word resentment sits because Victor knows it's not fine, he can see it's not fine but still he's asking Yuuri for more like Yuuri hasn't already given away everything. ‘You were right then anyway.’

’Stop it!’ Victor snaps hardly and Yuuri stops, because Victor told him to. ‘Why do you do it? Because of me?'

Yuuri scoffs cruelly. ‘Not everything is about you, Victor.’

’Christ, Yuuri. That’s not what I meant and you know it.’ 

 _Who cares what you meant?_ Yuuri wants to say, but doesn’t. Swallows it down like the food he can’t stomach. _This is what you got._

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri opens the wardrobe. He looks at the hangers. How Victor uses the wire ones Yuuri bought in the department store after arriving and how Yuuri’s clothes hang on Victor’s own expensive velvet ones. The space Yuuri made out for himself erased from where Victor blurs their lines together.  
  
Yuuri suddenly starts to feel the tears well in the corner of his eyes. They’re hot and they sting, his nose sharp at the back from the sensation. He reaches out and pulls Victor’s Russian jersey from a hanger. The metal clangs and Yuuri holds the jacket to his chest.  
  
Padding over in his bare feet, Yuuri feels his head sway as his eyes flash white for a moment. The movement was too sudden, the turn too much. His body screams for something. His heart wails for the person in the other room. But Yuuri just throws himself down on the bed. Let’s the stupid body that’s caged him all his life bounce lifeless on the surface.  
  
Over the last few months, Yuuri felt like he has been submerged beneath the surface of Victor’s life. Surrounded in Victor’s apartment, dwarfed by Victor’s past and deafened by Victor’s language. Victor is everywhere until Yuuri was breathing Victor in and out like a heartbeat. But now, as Yuuri crawls onto the bed, wrapping his body around the jacket, he feels lost. Without a tether, floating through the large space of their empty bedroom.  
  
Yuuri is alone. All he had wanted was to pull himself smaller so Victor could slip into him like everyone said they should, but instead all he has managed to do was push Victor out. Pushed him out like he pushes out food, with two sharp fingers.  
  
Isn’t this what he had wanted? Yuuri wanted Victor to just _leave him alone._ And well, now Yuuri is alone.  
  
The tears come so fast it almost breaks him. Yuuri holds the jacket to him like a shroud and sobs for what must’ve been mere minutes, but felt like hours. He hears movement behind the bedroom door, but it doesn’t open. Yuuri cries anew as he realises just how badly he’s damaged everything. Victor used to walk through Yuuri’s walls like they were doors. Now Victor won’t even join Yuuri in their own bed.  
  
The bed is huge and Yuuri is small. And _isn’t this what I wanted?_ He asks himself this, over and over. Until his snot turns cold and his throat is swollen. Until the weight of his engagement ring threatens to snap bone.  
  
Yuuri isn’t sure how long he lets the time pass, crying to himself and fading in between sleep and not. He doesn’t know it yet, but tonight is only the first of six nights where he sleeps alone in their bed and Victor stays in the living room.  
  
It starts the morning after. Yuuri awakes to Victor sitting beside him. Victor’s hand in his hair and the brief moment before Yuuri realises that everything is wrong, his heart feels so light it might float away without him. Yuuri loves Victor so much.  
  
More than almost anything. Almost.  
  
‘We’re not going to training today,’ Victor tells him and Yuuri’s heart breaks anew.  
  
The fight is ugly. Yuuri isn’t sure where the anger comes from, isn’t sure where he pulls the meanness that fires out of his mouth. But it goes on and on, for hours or what feels like it. By the time it’s over, Yuuri doesn’t even remember what exactly he had said to have Victor looking at him like that. A furious cocktail of frustration, exhaustion and grief.  
  
It’s the stricken look Victor gives him that has Yuuri turning away, tugging his arms in tight. When Victor reaches out, Yuuri ignores him.

‘Yuuri, I’m trying to help.’  
  
‘Help yourself, more like,’ Yuuri snaps tearfully and Victor groans, running his hands through his pale hair.  
  
‘That's not fair, Yuuri. Why can’t you just-’ Just what, Yuuri doesn’t know, as Victor switches to Russian and Yuuri knows when he’s being locked out of something. Yuuri bites his lip to stop the insult that lurked there.  
  
There is no training. That day, or the next. Or the next. And Yuuri eats. Because Victor says so and what Victor says, Yuuri obeys. Isn’t that just the way? Victor holds Yuuri to the table after each meal, won’t let him escape to the restroom until exactly 20 minutes after they've finished.

(Yuuri is hit then by the realisation that Victor must be Googling. Must be trying to figure out new choreography for this _thing_ and the shame is so huge Yuuri would never get his lips around it).  
  
Yuuri throws up in the shower. Not that Victor knows. There’s so much Victor doesn’t know.  
  
They move around each other like planets over those days. Their orbits are magnetic, circling space as they just brush past. Never touching. Yuuri had thought that having skating taken away from him was the worst possible outcome. Now, as he watches Victor prepare to leave for a walk with Makkachin, standing untouched by the kitchen counter, Yuuri realises that there are worse things.  
  
Never in Yuuri’s life had he ever considered the presence of his body towards someone else. Only now, as he watches Victor give a strained smile as he stands up, he notices just how gaping the distance between them is. Not even Yuuri is big enough to reach across the gap.  
  
He feels hideous. Ugly, down beneath his skin and as Victor approaches, Yuuri flinches. Beautiful, perfect and kind Victor. None of this is Victor’s fault. Victor doesn’t know, doesn’t understand just how lovely he is. How much he presses Yuuri up against the walls of his own life. Squeezing Yuuri until there is nothing inside of him, until all his secrets pour out. The kiss never comes. Yuuri closes his eyes.  
  
‘Will you join us?’ Victor asks. He doesn’t move to touch. Doesn’t push. Yuuri opens his eyes again and swallows the lump in his throat. Victor is all open affection, all deep broken lines from where he’s worried his forehead. Yuuri has carved those lines like his skates on ice.  
  
Slowly, Yuuri nods. Victor helps him with his coat- careful, afraid almost to linger too long. Yuuri wants Victor to touch him, wants Victor to kiss him and hold him and press him up against the door. Wants Victor to push his cold hands up Yuuri’s too-big sweater. Wants Victor to love Yuuri the way Yuuri had let him do before.  
  
But Yuuri can’t. His skin feels like it’s sticky, like it might catch Victor’s fingers and hold him where Yuuri hates himself most. So Yuuri flinches, and he moves, and he turns. And when they walk down the street, they don’t even hold hands despite how much Yuuri wants, despite how much Yuuri’s head aches because he still hasn’t eaten despite everything Victor offered him this morning.  
  
That night, as Yuuri lies in their empty bed, he realises that Victor will always meet him where he is. But where Yuuri has put himself is out of Victor’s reach. Yuuri lies in the cold sheets, stares up at the white ceiling and the orange streetlight from the window and asks himself- _do I love Victor more than I love this?_  
  
And Yuuri _knows_ he doesn’t love it. Not really, not exactly. He knows that the emotion he feels when he looks in the mirror is not love, but it’s addictive and familiar and it’s been Yuuri’s comfort long before Victor. Can he give it up? Without it, Yuuri fears he’ll hate his body so much he’ll tear it apart with his own hands. Bloody, bruised and broken.  
  
Could Victor stop that? Should he?  
  
Yuuri knows there's only one of them in this relationship with any actual power to do anything, but Yuuri isn't sure he's ready to admit there's something Victor can't do.   
  
In the end, Yuuri makes a decision. He pulls himself out of their bed, pads his way through the dark wearing nothing but Victor’s long, soccer jersey over his boxers despite how his legs shiver. Wearing Victor’s old skin that Yuuri might wear Victor's confidence, his presence, his love. Yuuri walks through their silent apartment until he reaches his sleeping Victor on the couch. Victor glows in the moonlight that streams through the blinds, ethereal and almost everything Yuuri has ever wanted.   
  
(Almost).  
  
But Victor also looks old. Or at least, older. Victor looks like a man through the wars, with wrinkles in the corner of his eyes and grey stubble across his cheeks, his jaw. Spilled over him like dust. The week off skating has rattled Victor; Yakov's scolding and Twitter insinuations of  _trouble in paradise_  chipping like paint _._  Yuuri can tell how it wears on Victor's pristine veneer. Yuuri can always tell. Victor carries so much for the both of them and Yuuri wonders, for the thousandth, millionth time, why Victor even bothers.   
  
Yuuri looks around their home, perched on the edge of Victor's couch as he sleeps. Yuuri looks at their shoes at the door, his coat next to Victor's on the wall. When Yuuri breathes in, he smells the fancy vanilla of Victor's scented candles and the stale steam from the kotatsu Yuuri had brought from home that replaced the coffee table. Yuuri thinks of their clothes, of Victor's sports jersey against his feathered skin. Yuuri touches Victor's head on the very top, where the hair blossoms in a whorl and where Yuuri loves to touch.  
  
For the first time, as Yuuri slips down and touches Victor’s sleeping face, he realises that maybe he's not the only one trying to change shape.

 

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.helpguide.org/home-pages/eating-disorders.htm
> 
> —
> 
> I never thought I’d write about it. But there was something about Yuuri’s dysmorphia at the start of the series, his anxiety and his overall story of determination that resonated with me quite deeply. 
> 
> Maybe I’ll finish this someday, but right now, this was what I needed to explore. 
> 
> www.victorsporosya.tumblr.com


End file.
